Field of Fire
' |image= |series= |production=40510-563 |producer(s)= |story= |script=Robert Hewitt Wolfe |director=Tony Dow |imdbref=tt0708542 |guests=Art Chudabala as Lt. Hector Ilario, Leigh McCloskey as Joran Belar, Marty Rackham as Chu'lak, Mark Allen Shepherd as Morn |previous_production=The Emperor's New Cloak |next_production=Chimera |episode=DS9 S07E13 |airdate= 10 February 1999 |previous_release=(DS9) The Emperor's New Cloak (Overall) Bliss |next_release=(DS9) Chimera (Overall) Dark Frontier Part 1 |story_date(s)=Unknown |group="N"}} (2375) |previous_story= Counterpoint Gravity |next_story= Latent Image Bliss }} =Summary= After a night of heavy drinking, Ezri Dax accompanies Ilario, a fellow DS9 crewmember, back to his quarters. The next morning Ilario is found dead there. Julian Bashir determines that Ilario was killed by a tritanium bullet fired at close range. The weapon is determined to be a TR-116, a prototype designed by Starfleet for use in environments where a phaser would be ineffective. But Odo is puzzled, because that kind of weapon usually leaves powder marks on the victim when fired at close range. Joran Dax, the most violent of the former Dax hosts, surfaces from Ezri's subconscious. Joran tells Ezri he can help her find Ilario's killer. Ezri summons him to the foreground of her consciousness with a Trill ritual. Demonstrating on a melon, Miles O'Brien shows Odo and Dax how the killer gave the bullet a close range trajectory without being in the same room as the victim - a micro-sized transporter had been fitted to the weapon, enabling it to pass through walls or any other obstacle. The bodies of a 37-year-old female human, and later a male Bolian, both turn up dead with tritanium bullet wounds. The only pattern appears to be that the killer is targeting Starfleet officers, until Ezri notices that each of three murder victims had photographs in their quarters that show people laughing. With Joran's help, Ezri narrows the list of suspects down to 48 Vulcans. Riding in a turbolift with Chu'lak, one of the suspects, Joran becomes convinced Chu'lak is the killer. Ezri uses a TR-116 to shoot Chu'lak at the same time Chu'lak shoots at her. The bullet for Ezri misses by a narrow margin, but the bullet for Chu'lak hits its target. Chu'lak is revealed to have been a crewmember on the Starfleet vessel USS Grissom, which experienced severe casualties during the Dominion War. Chu'lak was one of the ship's few surviving crewmembers, and the emotional shock of the experience drove him to target any Starfleet officer showing happiness. While being questioned, Chu'lak attempts to justify his actions by saying "Because logic demanded it." As Joran demands that Ezri finish him off, she instead calls a medical team. =Errors and Explanations= Nit Central # Murray Leeder on Monday, February 08, 1999 - 8:49 pm: Okay, nits! So O'Brien and Bashir don't let anyone play with them in the holosuites? Didn't they once put Morn in the cockpit of a Spitfire? No – they only suggested it! # Why does Ezri ask only for the Starfleet Vulcans on the station? Couldn't it have been any Vulcan? Granted, they'd need to have access to the rifle, but they could have stolen a prototype of something. Now isn't the time to rule anyone out. Given the circumstances, it makes more sense for the murders to have been committed by a Vulcan currently serving in Starfleet. # Chris Booton on Wednesday, February 10, 1999 - 9:25 am: After Ezri shoots Chu'lak and as he goes down he shoots at her and the bullet hits the wall to her right, as the steam is shooting out of it, Jeran's hair is moving as if the steam is blowing it, problem with this is that since he isn't real, the environment should not affect him in any way. ''Dan on Thursday, February 11, 1999 - 2:55 pm:''An anti-nit: someone mentioned that Joran's hair was moving when the bullet missed Ezri and steam came out of the wall (question: why was there steam? Starfleet switching from their usual power sources for steam tech???)....the person said since he isn't really there his hair should be moving.....well Joran is simply in Ezri's mind and she is projecting him as if he were real....if he is simply in her mind why didn't she keep her mouth shut instead of talking out loud (and making people think she's nuts for talking to herself)? She treated him as if he was really there so when steam (or maybe air? was that a life support vent or system behind the wall?) came from the wall she saw his hair moving.... # Dan on Thursday, February 11, 1999 - 2:55 pm: O'Brien makes one of those rifles...he wears a headset with a viewer and the viewer is on his RIGHT side....when Ezri goes into the lab (or whereever that rifle was) she puts on a headset and the viewer is on her LEFT side (since she is lefthanded)....the question is WHY did they have 2 different headsets? O'Brien only made the rifle for a demonstration to Odo and Ezri...why'd he bother making a headset for a left handed person? Maybe the viewer is adjustable, and can be lowered to cover either eye, in the same way the mic arm on my headphones can be lowered in either direction. # How did the vulcan know where Ezri was? Or for that matter how did Ezri know where he was? That station is pretty darn huge and they even said there was a large amount of starfleet officers on board (not to mention other species) so how was Dax able to pin point his location? She might have known where his quarters were but still that is a pretty big station to be looking through.... Dwmarch on Thursday, February 11, 1999 - 3:59 pm: The Vulcan found Ezri by looking at her file, which was displayed on the screen in front of him just before the shootout. Dan on Friday, February 12, 1999 - 1:09 am: The Vulcan didn't find her by simply looking at her profile/service record. All it would contain is info on where she has served etc.... # Aaron on Saturday, February 13, 1999 - 10:30 am: So... if O'Brien just realized that the rifle was using a mini-transporter, why did the original design contain a headset that allowed the user to see through walls to other parts of the station? AWhite (Inblackestnight) on Tuesday, December 02, 2014 - 12:01 pm: It probably didn't; there was a mention of modifying the rifle with the micro-transporter so it's likely the optical device was an add-on as well. # Aaron Dotter on Sunday, February 14, 1999 - 5:45 pm: When they figured out that the gun used a transporter for its bullets, why didn't they break out some transport inhibitors to protect people against the bullets? ' 1) It may not havde been practical. 2) The killer would have realised the station authorities were aware of the method used to commit the murders, prompting them to dispose of the evidence.' # Spockania on Sunday, February 14, 1999 - 11:10 pm: I've been thinking about transporters, and I figure there's actually no reason why the TR-116 cound not work considering what we have seen. Transporters HAVE to be able to absorb momentum- aside from the beaming-while-falling, how about just beaming up from a planet's surface? There'd be different momentum. Plus O'Brien's draining of an energy weapon in discharge. I assumed the modification made to the gun made it so momentum wasn't changed, only direction. Although I DO think the bullet's beam should have been visible. It was likely hidden within the barrel. # Sharon Jordan on Sunday, February 14, 1999 - 11:22 pm: I don't know if this was brought up earlier, but when Ezri and Joran where looking through the murdered Bolian's quarters, it was Joran looking at the pictures of The Bolian's kids and making the remark about them, causing Ezri to look up from looking at something els and peering over to what Joran was looking at. This bothered me. The real Joran is dead. Ezri is just using his personality. The pictures of the Bolian's kids should not been seen until Ezri notices them. Joran looks at the pictures and makes a comment about ugly kids like he has feeling and soul. I mean he really is , like should I say, a figment of her imagination? Murray Leeder on Monday, February 15, 1999 - 12:20 am: Well Ezri no doubt noticed the picture subconsciously, and the personality controlled by her subconscious, Joran, brought it to her conscious attention. That makes perfect sense, for my money. # Lisa Shock on Monday, February 15, 1999 - 12:00 pm: I'm surprised the victims were left for dead. A simple shot to the heart is an easy repair in the future. Bashir should have these people up and about quickly after a little tissue regeneration. I also don't think it should take people so long to find you if you're sick or injured. The computer monitors everything, so why not have an emergency medical alert built in? Many officers are single, or live alone while spouses are away so it would just make sense. I wonder how many people die from slipping in the shower in the future? Mike Konczewski on Monday, February 15, 1999 - 12:37 pm: Both victims had been dead for hours. Brain damage would have been irreversible by that time. # '' David Williams on Monday, February 15, 1999 - 1:22 pm:'' Since the TR-116 was developed as a prototype several years ago, maybe O'Brien knew of it from his days as Tactical Officer on the U.S.S. Rutledge under Captain Maxwell? Maybe it was circulated in tactical journals or such? It most likely wasn't classified, seeing that information on it (including replication blueprints) is widely available. Mike Konczewski on Monday, February 15, 1999 - 3:47 pm: What exactly was classified about the TR-116? It's a projectile weapon, or "gun" as we call it. Guns have been around for centuries. The knowledge isn't lost in the future; Kirk was trying to get Scott to replicated guns in A Private Little War. It can't be the transporter gadget, because O'Brien reinvented that in a few seconds (what's the point of classifying something that anyone can build?). Is it the the "X-Ray Spex" gadget? Maybe, but that wasn't the piece referred to as a TR-116. So what's so special about this rifle? Seniram 16:34, November 18, 2017 (UTC) Maybe it is the micro transporter - O'Brien is an genius engineer after all! Besides, how do we know he only needed a few seconds to re-create it? # Joshua Truax on Tuesday, February 16, 1999 - 10:27 am: I thought transporters required a couple of seconds to beam objects (even small ones) from place to place. So how this "transporter gun" doesn't have this same limitation? It seems to me that when the gun is fired, the bullet should take a second or so to dematerialize from the gun barrel and rematerialize in front of the target before continuing its flight. Then again, this would effectively render the gun useless, at least for shooting at live targets, as such delay would give the intended target ample time to get out of the bullet's way! Obviously the designers of this gun have somehow overcome this beaming delay. This begs the question of why other applications haven't been found for such technology. Don't you think something like this would make an excellent delivery system for, say, photon or quantum torpedos? Scaling the tech up for torpedo sized weapons would most likely require too much power. # Shirlyn Wong on Saturday, February 20, 1999 - 9:34 pm: Just noticed that when Ezri calls for Security and no one responds (because she was dreaming), she next calls Odo. And then she calls _Kira_. Yeah, I know that Kira and Odo spend a lot of time together but Ezri was trying to contact Security and Kira isn't part of that eh? ;-) Sharon Jordan on Saturday, February 20, 1999 - 10:46 pm: I think security is under Kira's command, so it's probably understandable to call Kira, if Odo does not respond. # Keith Alan Morgan on Friday, April 30, 1999 - 4:59 am: Joran doesn't speak in the Jamaican style accent that he used when he possessed Sisko in Facets. Of course not - in Facets he was speaking via the vocal chords of a person with - presumably - Jamaican ancestry. =Notes= Category:Episodes Category:Deep Space Nine